Fashion
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Background: In a hypothetical future where self-driving cars are increasingly common, they’ll have to do a really good job of automatically distinguishing between things that require sudden braking (e.g. a person in the roadway) and things that are OK to hit (e.g. a tumbling empty cardboard box). The issue: This is a hard problem. When…
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The issue: Using a cell phone outdoors can present two main problems, as shown in Figure 1. Specifically, you may be far from a tower (and thus, get poor reception) and the harsh light of the noon sun may make it very difficult to read the text on your phone, especially with the recently-popularized “dark…
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Background: A lot of kitchen tools have a non-electric version that is hand-cranked: for example, a coffee grinder, ice-cream maker, mixer, or salad-spinner. Additional common hand-powered items include the can opener and pepper mill. The issue: Unfortunately, many of these tools are slow and inefficient to operate by hand. However, if there were some way…
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Background: On many web sites for automotive parts (e.g. Amazon, AutoZone), you can specify the exact car that you own. Then, the web site will only show results that work with that car (Figure 1). Fig 1: You can specify the details of the cars in your “garage” and will only see car parts that…
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Background, part 1: Clothing catalogues occasionally provide a summary of the clothes that a model in an advertisement is wearing; usually this will be a piece of text that looks something like “Get this Look: Jeans $100, Shirt $40, Weird Socks $10.” This is a good system: the company can sell you more clothing this…
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You won’t believe how I never fell into a bottomless pit again, thanks to this one weird trick. Podiatrists hate it! Probably.
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Background: One of the leading causes of sidewalk-based injury is tripping on uneven pavement and/or falling into a manhole. Figure 1 illustrates one of the dangers inherent in modern sidewalks. This danger has become even more pronounced now that people are more likely to be looking at their cell phones as they walk. Fig. 1:…
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Background: Everyone has at some point had their personal space intruded upon by a discourteous and/or humongous individual on a bus, train, plane, or movie theater. If only there were some way to reclaim your personal space! Proposal: But there is! The answer is an inflatable pufferfish-inspired jacket (Figure 1). Fig 1: In normal situations,…
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Background: Different people have different ideas about what constitutes “personal space.” For example, in some cultures, it may be the norm to stand three feet away from a person one is talking to, whereas elsewhere, the standard might be four feet. Or two feet! Unfortunately, this is a subtle feature of interaction that people are…
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